High Context and Low Context Communication

Both counsellor and client cultural identities can influence the ease of understanding within counselling conversations. This video illustrates one potential challenge through a mismatch of high-context versus low-context communication styles. With low-context communication styles (Culture A in the video), most information is exchanged explicitly and rarely is anything implicit or hidden. The communication is more direct, succinct, and linear. High-context communication styles (Culture B in the video) include unspoken information that is implicitly transferred during communication. Many things are left unsaid, and meaning is derived through cultural context, social location, and culture-specific interpersonal roles. For more counselling resources, please subscribe to my YouTube channel at or check out my counselling ebooks at Sandra Collins, PhD © Sandra Collins, 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License -